IAD+Rome

=Twenty One= Lyford Rome

Purpose
What instructional or motivational purpose does this activity serve? To give practice summarizing a story (in the form of a headline), as well as team building.

Time Required
How many minutes do you estimate it will take? 20 minutes

Number of Participants
Put a mimimum, maximum and optimal number. Minimum 10, Maximum 40, Could be more if broken into groups.

Supplies Needed
What do the facilitator and participants need? Cards? Newsprint to write on? Markers? Name tags? Copies of newspapers articles, don't have to be current, Cards and pencils.

Preparation
What does the facilitator need to do or make ahead of time? Select appropriate stories from the news or magazines, distribute cards and pencils.

Introduction
Write the script that the facilitator will use to kick it off.

This next activity will combine creativity with a little anonymous competition. Don't worry, if you lose, you probably will be the only one to know, but if you win you can take credit if you want to! This activity will train us to compose and recognize good summaries of articles. This is the way it will work: you all have been given index cards and pencils. I'll read a short paragraph from a current newspaper or magazine. The creative part begins: you each will have 2 minutes to compose what you think is a good summary sentence of what you have heard. Don't put your name on the card. Then we'll all exchange cards with someone else. After this everyone chooses a random partner, someone other than the one who just got your card. Now the competition begins! Both of you will read aloud the sentences on the card you are holding and award a total of 7 points according to which you think is the best summary sentence. The 7 points can be split between the cards any way you choose - if they are close, one card gets 4 points and the other gets 3. If one is amazing and the other not so much, then a 7 to 0 split might be appropriate. We'll then exchange cards again, find new partners and repeat the scoring. One more round and then we'll see who has the highest scores on their cards, with a total of 21 being possible if a card wins each round completely.

Process
Step by step, describe what the facilitator and the participants will be doing. If appropriate, estimate the number of minutes each step will take.

Facilitator reads a short article from a newspaper. Participants listen and then have 2 minutes to write a summary sentence on their index card. Participants then exchange their card with another person, face side down. They are not to read the responses on the cards at this time.

Next, the participants find a partner; someone OTHER than the one with whom exchanged cards.

At this time each participant takes turns reading the cards they have and together they rate the responses. They distribute a total of 7 points between the two answers to reflect their relative appropriateness, such as 4 and 3, 5 and 2, 6 and 1, or 7 and 0. They then write the score points on the back of each card.

The process is repeated: Players exchange cards with others, then find a parter with whom to score responses with the 7 points. This procedure is repeated one more time, for a possible total of 21 points.

At the end, everyone returns to their seats with the card they currently have. They add up the three score points and write down the total.

With the scores tallied, it is time to see which summary sentences were though the best. The facilitator begins counting down from 21, if anyone has a card with that score they raise their hand and read the response out loud. The countdown process is repeated until the group has identified the top five responses.

At this point, the winner is decided by the crowd - each person "Sells" the headline using the newsboy test.

This game can be repeated with several different articles from different subject areas to give everyone a chance to score higher.

Debrief
List questions the facilitator should ask to solidify what is learned in this activity.

1. What are the elements that made the winning sentences stand out? 2. Does this game mimic the editing process? In what ways? 3. How could you integrate elements of this process into your workflow? Would this be helpful?

Credits
Was this activity inspired by another you saw elsewhere? Give credit where it is due.

I thought of using news clippings early on, but was stumped on the mechanics of the game play. After reading through countless examples from the suggested links, I found the framegame Thirty-Five at

http://www.thiagi.com/pfp/IE4H/march2008.html#Framegame

This seemed to be an appropriate extension of an editing process, coming up with variations and settling on the best one. The act of scoring in rounds served as a sorting algorithm acted out live in real time. The game of Thirty-Five repeats this procedure for five rounds, but I felt that this was too long to hold attention with this text. Limiting the gameplay to three rounds not only kept people moving quickly, but opened up the possibility of multiple exercises with different texts.